South Africa’s First National Bank (FNB) is making its mobile based e-wallet available to non-customers and the unbanked through a new partnership with retail giant PEP. The bank’s e-wallet service was set up in 2009 and currently has more than 700,000 customers using it – 50,000 new e-wallets are being created each month. The deal will extend the reach of the bank’s service to enable any South African with a bar-coded ID card to deposit, send and withdraw money, make payments and purchase goods at any of the 1200 PEP stores around South Africa. However customers are not able to transfer funds between the FNB e-wallet and other mobile based wallets.
The eWallet is set up by having your ID card scanned and depositing money at a PEP store, once the deposit is made customers can transfer funds to any valid mobile phone number, on any network, in South Africa. Charges incurred using the e-wallet include 2 Rand to send money, withdraw at selected retailers, make prepaid payments (airtime or electricity), or transfer from eWallet to a bank account; 5 Rand to withdraw at an FNB ATM (first withdrawal is free but the charge is incurred from then on); 9.95 Rand to deposit at selected retailers.
FNB CEO Michael Jordaan said of the partnership “we are further extending banking services to all South Africans, with or without a bank account. This will enable them to send and receive money instantly, a simple yet safe solution in providing access to financial services.”
Whitepapers
Related reading
Central banks best suited to issue digital currencies
By Aaran Fronda A recent report by the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF) said that central banks rather than private ... read more
Instant payments: innovations inbound for corporates
In 2020, instant payments look set to continue their current trajectory to become the biggest trend in payments. While these schemes already offer numerous benefits to corporates, leveraging innovations such as APIs and request to pay will go some way to unlocking their full potential, argues Michael Knetsch
Obstacles exist for banks to meet ECB’s instant payments goal
The cost of joining instant payment platforms will be one of many hurdles banks and payment services providers must overcome to meet ... read more
Banks must be aware of “biases” in data used to train ML models
Financial institutions need to be conscious of biases in the historical data that is being used to train machine learning (ML) models, ... read more
